Amazon.com said this week that it would cut 14,000 corporate jobs, with plans to eliminate as much as 10% of its white-collar workforce eventually. United Parcel Service UPS 0.99%increase; green up pointing triangle said Tuesday that it had reduced its management workforce by about 14,000 positions over the past 22 months, days after the retailer Target said it would cut 1,800 corporate roles.

Earlier in October, white-collar workers from companies including Rivian Automotive, Molson Coors TAP -2.34%decrease; red down pointing triangle, Booz Allen Hamilton and General Motors received pink slips—or learned that they would come soon. Added up, tens of thousands of newly laid off white-collar workers in America are entering a stagnant job market with seemingly no place for them.

At 5:30 a.m. on Tuesday, Kelly Williamson woke up to an alarming text from her employer, Amazon’s Whole Foods Market, urging her to check her email.

“Review asap and stay home from work today,” the message said. Williamson’s role on the asset-protection team was being eliminated. The badge and laptop for the 55-year-old from Austin, Texas, were deactivated. She was given 90 days to look for another job at the company. She said her personal belongings are being mailed to her.

A text message from Whole Foods Market instructing employees to check their email about their role and stay home from work.

Amazon sent messages to Whole Foods Market employees, instructing them to check their emails ‘about your role.’

A leaner new normal for employment in the U.S. is emerging. Large employers are retrenching, making deep cuts to white-collar positions and leaving fewer opportunities for experienced and new workers who had counted on well-paying office work to support families and fund retirements. Nearly two million people in the U.S. have been without a job for 27 weeks or more, according to recent federal data.

Behind the wave of white-collar layoffs, in part, is the embrace by companies of artificial intelligence, which executives hope can handle more of the work that well-compensated white-collar workers have been doing. Investors have pushed the C-suite to work more efficiently with fewer employees. Factors driving slower hiring include political uncertainty and higher costs.

Altogether, these factors are remaking what office work looks like in the U.S., leaving the managers that remain with more workers to supervise and less time to meet with them, while saddling the employees fortunate enough to have jobs with heavier workloads.

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The cascade of restructurings has created a precarious feeling for managers and staff alike. It is also tightening the options for those who are looking for employment. Around 20% of Americans surveyed by WSJ-NORC this year said they were very or extremely confident that they could find a good job if they wanted to, lower than in past years.

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Meanwhile, opportunities for front-line, blue-collar or specialized workers are growing. Companies describe shortages of trade, healthcare, hospitality and construction employees, while pausing hiring for consultants and managers, laying off staff in retail and finance, and deploying AI to do work in accounting and fraud monitoring.

“The system just feels like it’s messed up,” said Chris Reed, 33, who was laid off a year ago from his job in technology sales, his field of more than a decade.

Reed, in New Braunfels, Texas, recently took a job selling Toyotas after spending 10 months looking for work. Reed supports his three children, ages 10, 8 and 6, and his wife, a stay-at-home mom and student. “In tech, I’m qualified, I have the experience,” Reed said. “I didn’t get any of those jobs.”

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After his layoff, he said he applied to more than 1,000 jobs. To make ends meet, covering food, gas, utilities and two car payments, Reed said he emptied his 401(k) and sold stocks, cryptocurrency and the Pokémon cards he collected with his son. His home was put into foreclosure when he couldn’t make mortgage payments, he said.

This summer, a friend referred him to the dealership job. He commutes two hours or more each day and often hustles on the floor from the store’s 8:30 a.m. opening to its 9 p.m. close. On Tuesday, he was weighing whether to drive in on his day off.

Workers at a construction site.

Companies say construction workers are still in demand. Michael Nagle/Bloomberg News

He is feeling the strain from a poor work-life balance several months into the job. Sometimes, he goes days without seeing his children; he wakes up before they go to school and returns home after bedtime. On the evenings, he tucks his kids into bed, his daughter refuses to let him go.

“She thinks I’m not going to see her the next day,” he said. “It’s greatly impacted my home life.”

The white-collar jobs on the chopping block have been roles that many American workers aspired to secure. They paid up for college credentials to qualify for an interview, then landed comfortable jobs such as human-resource managers and midlevel engineers.

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Now what was once a stable position feels like a ticking time bomb, with employees who worked their way up the corporate ladder awaiting their turn for a video call announcing their last day.

Jobs that are higher-paying and require a bachelor’s degree are more exposed to AI than other positions, economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found.

Even as the economy grows, hiring has weakened, with economists expecting slower job-creation this fall. In such an environment, companies are becoming choosier—and both experienced white-collar workers and new college graduates seeking their first jobs are getting squeezed.

Recruiters and job seekers interacting at a job fair.

A June job fair in the Chicago area. Jamie Kelter Davis/Bloomberg News

Mo Toueg, who runs a recruiting firm, said he has seen the number of 40-year-olds in search of work surge in the past year. “They’re telling me they can’t keep up with the technology that’s out there as much,” said Toueg, of Gobu Associates. “Tech is outpacing their skill set.”

Job applicants said they are getting rejected in favor of candidates who have almost identical work experience to the job posting. Companies can now hire employees that match their exact, desired qualifications, said Melissa Marcus, an Austin-based managing director for an employment-consulting firm.

“The companies that have money to spend right now on head count are asking for the moon and the stars,” she said.

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That dynamic is helping to squeeze entry-level hiring. The class of 2025 submitted more job applications than the class of 2024, while receiving a smaller number of offers, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

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“I felt like I was putting a lot of work into getting myself into the job market, and the ladder had been pulled out from under me,” said Kobe Baker, 23, who began looking for a job in January, shortly after he graduated from Baylor University. “Nobody was there to really answer what I could do to improve, to do better on my next application. It was just radio silence.”

Baker, now based in Bloomfield, N.J., had hoped to break into the New York City job market after graduation. He widened his search before landing a job in customer service in late September. He said many young people want to be independent but can’t find a foothold in the job market.

Mike Hoffman, chief executive of the growth advisory consulting firm SBI, said in the past six months he has cut his software-development team by 80% while productivity has surged. “We have someone managing clusters of agents that are doing coding,” he said. “Our AI writes its own Python.”

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Investors are pressuring companies to streamline operations, Hoffman said, seeking head-count reductions as steep as 30%. Executives should ask themselves whether they can do so and whether it is the right thing to do, he said.

On Monday, the online-learning company Chegg said it would cut 388 jobs globally, about 45% of the workforce, as it pivots to an AI model that automatically answers students’ questions.

https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/white-collar-jobs-ai-324b749c?mod=hp_lead_pos2

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384733)

This country was founded on increasing shareholder value so fat retarded old people can watch cable news for years longer, if you don’t like it then you can just giiiiiiiiiiiiiit out 👉

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384755)

Hit the oil rig nigga

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384758)

>Reed, in New Braunfels, Texas, recently took a job selling Toyotas after spending 10 months looking for work. Reed supports his three children, ages 10, 8 and 6, and his wife, a stay-at-home mom and student. “In tech, I’m qualified, I have the experience,” Reed said. “I didn’t get any of those jobs.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384767)

Ivaylo Ivanov

15 hours ago

Is it AI though or is AI just the cover story? Knowing the (rather limited) capabilities of LLMs, takeover of large number of white collar jobs makes no sense at all.

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Brett Canon

15 hours ago

Exactly. The economy is a house of cards built on a massive mountain of debt. The whole thing is about to come crashing down, which has little to do with ChatGPT or other LLM.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384802)

this is literally just indians at companies laying off americans and then replacing them with outsourced indians. that's all that's happening

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384828)

this is not some kind of 36-D chess. it's just psychopathic indians infiltrating our country and institutions and lying to c-suites and investors so that they can bring in more indians and infiltrate institutions further

it really is that simple

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49385054)

not all of us are retards whose job can be replaced by a stupid computer

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49385417)

I'm currently winning annual contracts against 100+ teams rn with just ai tools and automation.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384801)

not worth discussing or worrying about beyond that. either these things happen or they don't

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49384826)

Lol Chegg isn't cutting jobs as an AI strategy, they're doing layoffs because their company got decimated by ChatGPT

Just completely gaped

https://www.google.com/search?q=%24chgg

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49385052)

https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/evaluating-impact-ai-labor-market-current-state-affairs

https://www.bls.gov/productivity/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49385112)

Companies do massive layoffs this time of year every year. I'm doubtful any of this has anything to do with AI.

The one guy they interview is in software sales - literally one of the most AI-proof jobs.

Not that we aren't all fucked longterm, but this article isn't making the case for it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49386273)

***

Can't keep up with tech at *40*? I kind of understand it when 60/70 year olds just give up, but c'mon man

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49387103)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5791231&forum_id=2...id#49387254)